Quoted: James Johannes, associate dean for executive education at the UW-Madison School of Business, said the price of gold is primarily determined by three factors: Demand for gold for jewelry and industrial purposes; demand for gold as a hedge against inflation; and demand for gold as a substitute for any currency holding.
Q: Is bottled water better for you than tap water?
A: It depends on your tap water.
“Bottled water may be appropriate where tap or well water is contaminated, where it has high levels of chemicals such as nitrates,” says Barbara Ingham, food science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “That would be an excellent reason to choose bottled water.”
Quoted: For one thing, the abstention agreement could create a chilling effect on county elected officials who might not vote their conscience out of fear of being sued, said Howard Schweber, associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. When he first heard about what had happened in Clark County, the constitutional scholar said â??the hair on the back of my neck started to rise.â?
Quoted: “If we want to prevent foreclosures, something needs to be done, and itâ??s not mortgage modification,” says Morris Davis, an assistant professor of real estate and urban land economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and one of the authors of a relief plan that would provide housing vouchers attached to unemployment insurance.
Quoted: Darrell Bazzell, the vice chancellor for administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said expanding its campus is not part of the universityâ??s strategy.
â??We are focusing on meeting the needs on campus,â? he said. â??We value having classes close by and we see no need to expand beyond campus boundaries.â?
Quoted: Joanne Cantor, a former University of Wisconsin professor who writes about media issues, said on her blog that she shares concerns about the beer ads on NFL telecasts, but has mixed feelings about the ED ads.
Quoted: â??Many people involved in the health-care debate are discontented with the Baucus proposal,â? said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. â??But this is what compromise looks like.â?
Quoted: “At the UW-Madisonâ??s Arlington Research Station UW-Madison. it has been the coolest growing season on record,” said Joe Lauer, an agronomy professor and the UW Extensionâ??s corn specialist. “But the story isnâ??t done yet.”
Two UW-Madison climate experts said Wisconsin may be nearing a tipping point with respect to environmental warming at a forum Tuesday in Engineering Hall.
Quoted: Dr. Yoshi Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin said tests in monkeys showed the virus lives and replicates 1,000-fold better in the lungs than does seasonal flu.
Quoted: “Nitrogen is associated with color, phosphorous with flowering and potassium with growth,” said Dennis Lukaszewski, urban gardens director for the University of Wisconsin-Extension. “There are other micro-nutrient blends out there for feeding specific plants, but those are the big three.”
Quoted: Obamaâ??s address to Congress last week “wasnâ??t the huge game-changer some had hoped or thought,” says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who studies public opinion.
â??Like a locomotive with a mouth full of butcher knives.â?
That is how a shark expert, Matt Hooper, described Carcharodon megalodon to the police chief in Peter Benchleyâ??s novel â??Jaws.â? He was referring to the 50-foot-long, 50-ton body and enormous six- to seven-inch-long teeth that made the extinct megalodon shark perhaps the most awesome predator that has ever roamed the seas.
Quoted: “The kernels just havenâ??t been developing like they normally would,” said Joe Lauer, agronomist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A recent survey of Wisconsin physicians found that a clear majority is concerned about the nationâ??s health system and believe reform is needed. The results are from a University of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Medical Society survey that was published this week in the Wisconsin Medical Journal. While there was a diverse response as to how the system should be reformed, there was broad agreement that all Americans should have health insurance – to be obtained from an employer, a private plan or another source, with subsidies if needed to make coverage affordable. More than 90% of physicians indicated that the government should bear some degree of responsibility to ensure all patients have access to high-quality, affordable health care.
A column by Richard D. Rieselbach, professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health; Patrick L. Remington, UW-Madison’s associate dean for public health and Cyril M. Hetsko, a board member of the American Medical Association, and a clinical professor of medicine at UW-Madison.
Noted: Meanwhile, for the past six months researchers in Madison, Wis., have been investigating the idea of turning an electron beam loose in an ionized gas, thereby producing neutrons to direct into a pool of heavy water seeded with molybdenum-98. Some of the neutrons would merge with Mo-98 nuclei, creating Mo-99, explains Paul DeLuca Jr., the University of Wisconsinâ??Madisonâ??s provost and a codeveloper of the idea.
Quoted: J. Michael Collins, an assistant professor in the department of consumer science at University of Wisconsinâ??s School of Human Ecology in Madison, suggests paying less for a home that you can upgrade periodically when your income is stable and your savings or available credit make it possible.
Quoted: Robert H. Dott Jr., a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison geologist who co-authored “Roadside Geology of Wisconsin.”
Quoted: The strategy is a creative way for birds to get more bang for their buck, says wildlife ecologist Professor William Karasov, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: “Right now things look bleak,” said Sarah White, a senior associate at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a policy group housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Nationally and statewide, unemployment rates are going to continue to rise. … The thing we need to be thinking about thatâ??s very important is keeping our eye on the long term.”
Q: Why are animals such as coyotes and even bears moving closer to cities?
A: “These species are only re-colonizing their former range, which now includes cities and suburbs,” says Adrian Treves, an assistant professor of environmental studies at UW-Madison.
Quoted: Tom Reason, acting admissions director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said UW System colleges do not ask applicants whether they have been suspended from school.
As the cityâ??s students return to school on Wednesday, thousands will enter classrooms led by a teacher that the Department of Education has deemed low performing on internal reports. But in a sign of how complicated and controversial the reports are, many teachers never received them, and there are no plans to release them to parents.
….It is still unclear why 38-year-old Mary Ehrlinger drowned on Aug. 19. She was not fond of lake swimming with its murky water, fish and seaweed, but she was a strong swimmer with 20 triathlons to her credit. She was training with a small group of friends to compete in Sundayâ??s Ironman Wisconsin, a grueling triathlon with a 2.4-mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bicycle ride and then a 26.2-mile run.
Ironman officials say they donâ??t intend to make any procedural changes because tight safety precautions are already in place, but Ehrlingerâ??s drowning and the deaths of three other triathletes in Wisconsin this year have led many in the sport to start thinking harder about safety, particularly for the often chaotic swimming portion of the events.
Quoted: Dr. Lee Faucher, a trauma and burn surgeon at UW Hospital and Clinics and medical director of Ironman Wisconsin.
Quoted: “He brought that sense of legitimacy and the idea that informercials are not necessarily hucksterism, they are meeting the legitimate needs of legitimate consumers,” says Thomas C. Oâ??Guinn, a University of Wisconsin marketing professor. “He made it OK to buy stuff from informercials. He kind of added a little class to it.”
Quoted: These days, kettlebells might be the trendy thing in the weight room, said Dave Knight, an athletic performance coordinator in the department of sports medicine at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics in Madison.
Quoted: Dr. Timothy Kamp, professor of medicine and stem cell researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in this research, said itâ??s a big leap forward that researchers were able to show that fat cells can be turned into cells that have the potential to become any tissue in the body. “This is another proof of principle … another way to get stem cells,” Kamp said.
Quoted: His latest moves appear designed to appeal to bedrock Republican supporters, said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.
Noted: I presented the facts to three ethicists: Kelly McBride at the Poynter Institute, a journalism training center in Florida; Bob Steele, a professor at DePauw University and a scholar at Poynter; and Stephen Ward, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. All agreed that Pogue and The Times were facing a clear conflict of interest.
They didnâ??t necessarily agree on how to resolve it. McBride said the paper should not deprive readers of Pogueâ??s expertise, but she and Ward said there should be rigorous oversight and full disclosure to readers about his interests. Steele said disclosure doesnâ??t make the problem go away, and it would be better if Pogue did not review products for which he has written manuals.
Quoted: â??These little low-power stations are really, really local in an age when not much else is,â? said Michele Hilmes, a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has written widely about radio history.
Quoted: “You have a duty as a reporter to disclose to the person the purposes of your interview,” said Stephen Ward, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at UW-Madison. “You should be open about all your affiliations in advance.”
Quoted: “The employment will take a long time to come back,” said Joel Rogers, who founded COWS in 1992 and is its director. “Itâ??s an uncertain environment. Youâ??ve lost a year, two years of growth and thatâ??s a big loss.”
Q: Why is it that often foods with the least nutritional content taste the best to people?
A: It depends on how you define nutrition, says Franco Milani, an assistant professor of food science at UW-Madison. The word “nutritious” may mean a food full of anti-oxidants and fiber, heavy on vitamins and protein, but light on calories.
Quoted: Many things influence why embrace or reject particular brands, says Aric Rindfleisch, a marketing professor with Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Our relationships with brands can be deeply psychological and rooted in our personal experience with a company.
Quoted: Dr. Thongchai Winichakul, a Thai historian who lectures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, agrees. An insistence on unity, he points out, leaves little room for dissent.
Quoted: “In my mind, the benefits of the vaccine strongly outweigh any possible risk of the vaccine,” said Dr. Ellen Wald, a pediatric infectious disease expert with UW Health.
A review of Moore’s new book. Since 1984, Moore has taught creative writing at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
â??Muskrat Loveâ? may have been a hit in the 1970s, but â??Cotton-Top Tamarin Affiliativeâ? doesnâ??t have quite the same Top-40 potential — unless you happen to a primate. The “song” — part of a collaboration between a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and a musician — certainly got some Wisconsin-based Cotton-Tops, small monkeys normally found in the forests of northern Columbia, going. The researchers described how music could influence the monkeyâ??s behavior in a study published in this weekâ??s Biology Letters journal.
Quoted: Laura Jull, a professor at University of Wisconsin at Madison
Quoted: The overall plan to combine tax increases, debt refinancing, and cuts to contingency funds “does seem eminently reasonable to me in tough times,” said Andrew Reschovsky, a UW-Madison economist and tax policy expert.
To product designer Michael Hartzell, one of the most difficult things is telling people heâ??s jobless. Itâ??s especially true in Madison, a city long viewed as recession-proof.
“Being laid off has a real stigma attached to it,” he says. “I havenâ??t even posted it on my Facebook page yet.”
Hartzell, 40, and a father of one, lost his position recently at Pacific Cycle during a companywide reorganization. Although he knew the end was coming, it didnâ??t make it any easier. Heâ??s since found a bit of consulting work, but few firms are hiring, and competition for any full-time openings is intense.
….As the nation readies to mark Labor Day 2009, Hartzell can take some comfort knowing heâ??s not alone. Some 273,000 Wisconsin residents, or 8.7 percent, are unemployed, according to the latest figures from the Department of Workforce Development.
Quoted: Laura Dresser, associate director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS)
Quoted: Limnologist Dick Lathrop of UW-Madison.
Quoted: Timothy Smeeding, who heads the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Poor Kids in a Rich Country: Americaâ??s Children in Comparative Perspective, said Americaâ??s troubles stem from a flawed mix of government spending and not enough help for the working poor.
Music inspired by the soothing calls of contented monkeys relaxes the animals when it is played back to them, researchers have discovered.Researchers composed “monkey melodies” to investigate whether non-human primates are capable of responding to music with the same emotions as people.
Music has great power to alter our emotions â?? making us happy or sad, agitated or calm. Psychologists have tried in vain to figure out why that happens. Now, a composer says heâ??s has a clue. And he got it by writing music not for humans, but for monkeys.
â??Different species may have different things that they react to and enjoy differently in music,â? said psychologist Charles Snowdon of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who published the paper Tuesday in Biology Letters with composer David Teie of the University of Maryland. â??If we play human music, we shouldnâ??t expect the monkeys to enjoy that, just like when we play the music that David composed, we donâ??t enjoy it too much.â?
Quoted: “Psychopaths are often big trouble for those around them,” said clinical psychologist Joseph Newman at the University of Wisconsin. “If we can find out what underlies their problems, we might be able to identify what kinds of interventions might be able to work for them.”
Quoted: Ann Hoyt, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor, points out significant distinctions between nonprofit co-ops and companies such as Intermountain.
Quoted: The study is “a novel piece of research” that is the first to identify a neural source of personal space in people, says Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Itâ??s also part of a growing series of studies that underscore the importance of the amygdala in human social interactions,” he says.
Is there something you wish every college student would know before the start of the school year?
The Capital Times posed that question to a range of people associated with higher education in the Madison area and asked them to share some â??words of wisdomâ? with students as the 2009-10 academic year gets under way.
(A variety of UW-Madison faculty and staff members offer their advice in this article.)
Cited: “In 1974, oncologist Wac{lstrok}aw Szybalski of the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison coined the term “synthetic biology” as a way to describe biologists shuffling genes among organisms.”
Quoted: “If you believe in democratic participation, with citizens coming out and speaking their minds, I donâ??t see how you can really object to town halls,” said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor. “Ultimately, you canâ??t deny the people the right to speak.”
Quoted: Timothy Allen, professor of botany and environmental studies at UW-Madison and an expert on renewable energy, said any health effects are likely self-induced and psychological.
Q. Can people actually speed-read?
A. Yes, but speed-reading has drawbacks, says Mitchell Nathan, a professor of educational psychology at UW-Madison.
Quoted: “The new media can be an important tool in a campaign,” said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor. “But itâ??s not by itself a giant killer.”
Quoted: But the move to test, said Dr. Norm Fost, a University of Wisconsin pediatrician and bioethicist, is based on â??mass hysteria and phenomenal hyperbole.â?
Quoted: It was Prince Damrong who instituted suffrage for Thai women under the 1897 Local Administration Act, which made Siam the first major country in the world in which women and men achieved the vote on an equal basis and without any record of controversy, says Katherine A Bowie, an American professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The retina is a lush layered field of tissue lining the back of the eye, a complex mix of specialized cells that serve as a transfer station where light signals are absorbed and sent to the brain to be translated into sight.
Researchers from University of Wisconsin, Madison have now created these unique retina cells from lowly skin cells — opening the possibility that patients with damaged or diseased retinas might some day be able to grow themselves a cure from their own skin.
Time Magazine names Wisconsin-based Pollster.com one of the 50 Best Websites of 2009.
The advantage of Pollster.com, according to website co-founder Charles Franklin who is a political science professor at UW-Madison, is that it fills a â??new media nicheâ? with very specific, unbiased political polling data, which he says, had never been done by traditional media.
Anheuser-Busch InBev is dropping its “Fan Cans” promotions from communities around the country where colleges have complained that the effort â?? which sells cans of Bud Light in school colors â?? promotes underage drinking and infringes on trademarks.
In some cases, such as at the University of Wisconsin, the campaign hadn’t even made it near campus yet, but the schools didn’t want to wait to tell Anheuser-Busch to drop the program.
“If you don’t protect your trademarks, you eventually lose them, so we felt it was important to at least communicate to them that we didn’t think it was an appropriate tact,” said Vince Sweeney, vice chancellor for university relations at University of Wisconsin.
He said the school in Madison, Wis., received a letter from Anheuser-Busch this week saying it would stop selling the red-and-white cans in the area.
